Before he became a global EDM name, Diplo was just another young American drifting through India with little money and no plan. In a recent post, the DJ and producer spoke about a trip he took in his early 20s — riding long stretches on a motorcycle, living cheap, and spending time in Rishikesh that stayed with him.
Diplo, born Thomas Wesley Pentz, once came to India on a one way ticket when he was a broke 20 something year old. He bought a second hand Royal Enfield and moved through Delhi and Kolkata, sleeping wherever he could and eating whatever was affordable. The money, he said, ran out quickly. He kept going anyway.
Rishikesh was never in his plan. But he reached there when he was tired, broke and unsure of what to do next. It wasn’t really a spiritual turning point, and he doesn’t frame it as one. What he remembers is how all the bells, traffic, voices, music felt so unfamiliar. He spent time listening, picking up vinyl from small shops, absorbing sounds he didn’t fully understand at the time. He wasn’t studying Indian music, but parts of it stuck.
He also recalled swimming in the Ganga, a decision he now admits was maybe reckless. It was impulsive and risky, and very much in line with how he describes that phase of his life — curious, careless and figuring things out as he went.
What is different about Diplo’s story from the usual celebrity India story is its lack of drama. He did’t claim the trip transformed him overnight or gave him a lot of clarity. He spoke about it as a period of exposure — to sound, to disorder, to a different pace of life — that quietly fed into how he later approached music.
Years later, as an artist known for jumping genres and collaborating across cultures, Diplo sees that trip as an early influence rather than a defining moment.
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